Education vs. Schooling

It seems that today was "you've run out of excuses not to educate your own child" day on social media.

A friend posted the following status to accompany this photo of her son: 

What you learn on a hike with [this boy] (he's the one with his favorite machete):

1) "Those big red ants are actually endangered. Seems the fire ants have moved in and are overtaking the big ones. Fire ants are too small for the big ones to really bite so..." 2) "If you see a wild hog, start running and make lots of noise. They're actually more scared of you." 3) "Yes! A bow dart tree! These are perfect for making a bow and arrow. You can always tell a bow dart tree from its yellow pulp" 4) "Wait. No, that's for a bear. If you see a wild pig, Mom, just run!! 5) "Stomp really hard when you walk so you can scare all the snakes away" (He only said that for his benefit because it's funny to see me scared in the middle of nature.)

This boy is a very old soul. 

A few years ago, he was a student at the school where I work as a para-Librarian. I enjoyed the few times we shared meaningful conversations. I responded to the post with these words: "I miss that boy". 

In light of some of my conversations with his mom about educating our own children, she responded: "And if I could do it all over again, I would let them homeschool me." 

During the Rush Limbaugh radio show, parents called in to ask him for advice about their children being bullied by peers and teachers for supporting Donald Trump. While Rush mentioned the admirable homeschoolers he had met in marketing his children's book series, Rush Revere: Time-Traveling Adventures with Exceptional Americans, and advised one mother to remove her child from her kindergarten class, he stopped short of recommending home-based education, even when the mother admitted she had considered it. 

Later, I saw a revealing clip from the new movie, Captain Fantastic, highlighting the vast difference in learning between a homeschooled child and schooled teens, featuring an impromptu quiz on the Bill of Rights. The movie is about a single father who chooses what some may call "extreme parenting", spending 24 hours a day with his children, acting as their teacher, mentor and guide while instructing them on life-skills and natural law. 

In the late afternoon, on Fox News, the president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, Dr. Everett Piper, reiterated his essay titled This is What You Get, describing the consequences of cheating our children out of being taught absolute truth. 

I was asked to explain the Millennial Generation's cry for "safe spaces," their demands for "trigger warnings," their repudiation of "micro-aggressions," and now even their insistence that the results of the presidential election be reversed, because they, our privileged progeny, don't like it.

My response in brief: Why would you expect anything different? 

This is what you get when you send your kids off to colleges and universities that teach politically correct pablum rather than the time-tested truths of a free people and civil society. This is what you get when you entrust your sons and daughters to sit under the tutelage of faculty who proudly pan a Judeo-Christian ethos and praise its antithesis. This is what you get after years of teaching the next generation "it doesn't matter what you believe as long as it works for you."

The time has come, my friends. 

If you want your child to be truly educated, and not merely schooled, make the accommodations and sacrifices necessary to provide a home-based learning environment.

As a parent who wants the best for your children, you are equipped and qualified to mentor them into adulthood. Don't reject this right and privilege by entrusting their minds to complete strangers who probably do not share your values. It's not hard. I promise. If you're worried about getting a full day's curriculum in, stop it. It will take you and your child two hours maximum to achieve and exceed the learning that takes place in a seven-hour school day, without the distractions, disruptions, disrespect, and dystopia of a classroom. 

And all you need is a library card.